ABSTRACT
Offenders often believe that prevention measures have been brought into force before they actually have. This leads to what has been called the 'anticipatory benefits' of prevention. Though these anticipatory effects can occur by accident, the police can make deliberate efforts to create or accentuate them. To be effective, police must have useful insight into how offenders perceive the situation and have methods for deceiving offenders as to the true nature of the intervention.
